Kinley Shumake
Jasper High School
Jasper, TX
The
cameras on the bus
For most people,
their days begins around 6 a.m. Whether they’re headed to work or
school, they drive down roads cluttered with other drivers like,
parents dropping their kids off, teenagers heading to school and
buses. What people don’t realize that about 23.5 million students
ride a bus to school every day and if you were to include
transportation by bus for the students who are involved in
extracurricular activities, buses would easily become the largest
public transit system in the country. That’s why it is critical to
minimize the number of deaths and injuries related to riding a school
bus. I mean, it is our future generation we’re talking about.
Every year about
17,000 students are treated in hospitals for injuries relating to bus
accidents. An average of 7 school aged kids are killed from bus
crashes and 19 students are killed from just simply getting on and
off the bus. In other words, most of the deaths or injuries occur
when cars refuse to stop for the buses’ flashing red lights or the
bus driver themselves are unable to see the kid from their poor
mirrors.
In order to reduce
these tragic, early deaths, there are two solutions that involve a
simple installation of cameras. First, it should be mandatory that
all buses are equipped with a camera that records the cars that avoid
stopping for the bus when picking up and dropping off kids. Secondly,
buses should benefit from the same cameras that are becoming more and
more popular for today’s cars. The price of a surround view system
on a car ranges from $250 to $1,000. With installing these cameras on
buses, drivers would be able to watch the children as they leave the
bus or approach the bus. With reducing the bus driver’s blind
spots, the number of incidents decreases as well.
The next time you
are driving to school, work, or wherever, remember to be cautious
around the school buses and bus stops. If you were to kill a child
because you refused to stop for a buses’ flashing lights, you could
face serious consequences. When a pedestrian is killed by a car, the
driver, who is at fault, could be charged with vehicular manslaughter
or involuntary manslaughter. Even if that didn’t happen, you could
still face a wrongful death lawsuit where they could as for
compensation for the victim’s losses.

Before you get behind the wheel in the morning and drive off to
your destination, remember that there are major consequences for
reckless driving. By pinpointing this specific cause of deaths caused
by vehicles, we can create solutions and make a dent in the 34,000
people killed every year. As someone who travels on a school bus
regularly, I feel that it is vital that solutions start being pursued
to protect our future generations.